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Sunday, March 02, 2008

Day 2612: Mr Clogg Pops the Question

It's taken a bit of a while, but finally the unlikely combination of frothing Conservatories and Mr James Graham have convinced me that we really SHOULD have a vote on everything to do with the European Union and not just on the Lisbon Treaty.

To use Mr James's analogy: voting on JUST the Lisbon Treaty is like voting whether to have icing or not on your cake. Even if you vote "NO" you still have a CAKE – or in this case a stack of older treaties… okay, it is more like a pile of PANCAKES.

Voting whether or not to have SYRUP on them doesn't STOP them being a pile of pancakes, and similarly voting whether or not to ratify Lisbon doesn't stop us having all the Union treaties that we've already got. It just decides whether it all WORKS or you're left with a pile of SOGGY BATTER. Or in the case of the pancakes…

The Conservatory position appears to be "our voices must be heard: we demand the right to insist on sticking IN Europe, muddling along with a system that doesn't work and accepting all the bad things because we can't change them er…".

Neither in NOR out, but resolutely jamming themselves into the revolving door so that everyone else is left waiting.

It really is a bit SILLY to keep shouting that "this treaty is ninety-five percent the same as the Constitution" when what we've ALREADY GOT is NINETY PERCENT of the Constitution.